


Birth Day

by Grace Kay (Drummerchick7)



Series: A Little WayHaught Family [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Birth, Brief mention of post-birth anatomy, But not the nitty gritty, Established Relationship, F/F, LGBT family, Wayhaught - Freeform, older wayhaught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drummerchick7/pseuds/Grace%20Kay
Summary: A family of two expands in one moment to be a family of four.





	Birth Day

**Author's Note:**

> It's my daughters' first birthday and I thought I'd do my own little commemoration in this little WayHaught universe I made. I've been wanting to expand "Finding The Time" with more about the pregnancy and birth and other moments between Nicole and Waverly anyway, so this seemed like an okay place to start. I plan to write more, but obviously I'm not going in chronological order.
> 
> This is unbeta-ed (sorry) so please point out any mistakes. I'm experimenting with a *very* different style for this fic, too, so stylistically this is very different from "Finding The Time." I hope you enjoy!

“Nicole.”

Waverly’s hand grasps Nicole’s forearm.

“Ow. Waves.” Nicole looks up, and she must see something in Waverly’s expression because suddenly her eyes are big and worry is written all over her face. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I…” Waverly stiffens. There’s that feeling again.

“Waves!”

“I think my water broke.” Another little gush, no matter how hard Waverly tries to hold it in. “Scratch that, my water definitely broke.”

“Shit.” Nicole takes a deep breath. “Okay. That’s okay. We’re prepared for this.” She pulls out her phone. “I’ve got the the OB department at the hospital saved in my phone.” She begins scrolling.

Another gush. This one is bigger. “Honey, I’m not sure we have time to get to the hospital,” Waverly says. She gets to her feet. “You call. I’ll take care of _this_.” She gestures to the wet spot on the couch.

First stop, Waverly goes for the horse-sized maxi pads she ordered online at the recommendation of the other moms in the online twins group. It takes a while to waddle to the bathroom, though, and looking behind her, Waverly can see she’s left a trail of splashed fluid. She can feel it running down her legs, soaking into her skirt.

She finally sorts herself and goes in search of a way to clean up. It’s something to focus on while Nicole is on the phone. Because Waverly is definitely going to freak out. It’s early. She’s only 35 weeks and 5 days. Not even 36 weeks, which is the _bare minimum_ she’s seen people be able to deliver and still take their tiny twins home when they themselves were discharged. If she stops to think she will _worry_ and she knows having preemies is not a problem, it’s fine, but still _no one wants their newborns in Intensive Care_.

It doesn’t help that Waverly has _way_ too much experience in hospitals, waiting to see if her sister or her wife is going to _live_ and the thought of sitting and worrying about these children she hasn’t even _met yet_ sends her heart down deep into her gut.

Waverly finishes wiping up the floor, and realizes she can’t get up. She has nothing to hold onto. She has no one to help her. She’s just sitting there like a fricking beached whale, leaking fluid and sitting on the floor with a pregnant belly that is so big she has literally burst like a water balloon.

She starts to cry.

“No no no I will _not_ cry right now!” she berates herself. She rolls to her side, and her skirt catches on an imperfection in the hardwood, and the thread pulls and tears, and that’s it, Waverly is truly crying now.

“Waves?”

Nicole comes around the corner. “Waves, they said they have room for the babies in the NICU and- oh my God, did you fall?!”

Waverly looks up from where she lies on her side on the ground, a blubbering mess. “No,” she says through her tears. Nicole is at her side before she’s done speaking, helping to lift her to her feet.

“Baby, were you cleaning the floor? It’s fine, you don’t need to do that,” Nicole says, taking the rag from Waverly. Waverly will find it three weeks later in a fit of cleaning while the twins nap and remember the embrace Nicole now pulls her into. It’s an embrace that soothes all of Waverly’s hurts, her worries. She clings to Nicole’s shirt and dries her tears on it.

“What’d they say?” she finally asks.

She can almost hear Nicole’s smile. “We’re having these babies, Waves. They have room in the NICU _just in case_.” She tilts Waverly’s chin up like she usually does for a kiss, but this time it’s just to gaze into her eyes with a wondrous smile. “We’re having these babies, Waves.”

“Dammit, I just stopped crying,” Waverly says, but she’s smiling. She’s going to meet the little girls she can feel tap dancing on the inside of her pelvis at all hours of the day and night.

* * *

Nicole’s fingers ache, but she will _not_ let go. Waverly has been induced, she has her epidural, and she’s been pushing now for an hour. The baby’s head is slowly making its way through the birth canal, and Nicole has to stop herself from craning to try to see. She has to stop herself because she’s so _eager_ to catch a glimpse, any glimpse, of her children. She has completely fallen in love with the ultrasounds, with the swishes of heartbeats, with the tiny taps of tiny feet against the taut wall of Waverly’s abdomen that have been responding to the sound of Nicole’s voice for weeks.

She’s in love and she doesn’t even really know what they look like yet. She doesn’t know what they look like or smell like or feel like. She’s wanted to meet them since she first saw those two clusters of cells that they implanted eight months before in the fertility clinic’s sterile procedure room.

And now they’re almost here, almost ready, but they need a little more help from Waverly. And Waverly, bless her, is doing her damndest to give them that help, groaning and straining and grunting, breathing and pushing and breathing and pushing.

“You got this, baby,” Nicole chants. Her mantra, always. Waverly is a fucking badass and this only increases her badassery in Nicole’s eyes. Sure, Wynonna did this on a pool table with no pain meds, but Waverly carried _twins_ and now she’s going to push them both out while unable to even feel her legs.

Total fucking badass.

Another fifteen minutes, and Baby A has her head out. Her shoulders follow, and Nicole is whisked in, cutting the cord, and then her baby is _in her hands_ , wrapped loosely in a blanket that has turned pink with the birth waters. A tiny wail fills the room, and Nicole finds tears on her cheeks as she observes her daughter’s first expression: a fury so pure and tiny that she can’t be anything other than Waverly’s daughter. That there is an Earp face. Nicole puts her lips on this tiny creature’s forehead and inhales and she will never, ever forget this scent of New, of Old, of Origin.

“Waverly,” she breathes, and moves, bringing the tiny little thing over to her wife, to the love of her life, the love of her Entire Being, of her every universe she’ll ever inhabit. Waverly’s small hands reach for her child, and then they’re one once more. The crying ceases when the baby is placed skin-to-skin with Waverly, and Nicole crouches with one arm protectively over each of their heads and it _hits_ her that her whole family has been within her embrace all these months. And while one of them is still missing, still yet to be born, nothing has made her feel more complete than this moment.

“Elizabeth,” Waverly breathes, and laughs. Nicole continues to stream tears and presses a kiss to Waverly’s forehead.

She takes the baby back only when it’s clear that baby B is ready to make her debut. She hands Elizabeth to a nurse to weigh and give vitamin K and eye drops, and she is right back at her wife’s side.

Waverly is determined. She’s done it once, she knows what it feels like, she knows what she’ll get on the other side. It only takes fifteen more minutes of pushing, the path having already been cleared by Elizabeth. Nicole cuts the cord, takes the new baby who already looks a little different from her sister, and she places this baby on Waverly’s chest. Nicole presses a kiss to the back of the baby’s head, unmindful of the dampness there, and then pulls the little hat over her that the nurse hands her.

She retrieves Elizabeth and, with some help, slides the now diapered baby under her shirt to nestle against her skin. Nothing has ever compared to the warmth and tiny breaths of this naked baby against her chest. She thought Waverly, small and fiery and fierce, made her feel strong and solid, but this baby makes her feel like the Hulk with a butterfly, like she might break it but also like she can be the shield that keeps the bad things away.

It’s over. Everything slows. The doctor sews up a small tear and generally cleans up at the other end, but up near Waverly’s face, the two women are having revelations the likes of which they never thought possible. Baby B is named Julia, her name also whispered into the space between them. Elizabeth nuzzles and tries to nurse, eliciting giggles all around.

Waverly sits up and it takes some doing, but they get both babies positioned and they both manage a few suckles at Waverly’s breasts. Waverly hand-expresses colostrum, and the babies greedily suck up each drop as it appears. They are so tiny and so strong and so delicate and Nicole is completely overwhelmed by these tiny paradoxes with whom she shares genes.

She can’t put them down, even hours later. She has a nurse help her, securing both babies against her skin inside her shirt and holding them tight to her while Waverly sleeps, getting well-earned rest. Nicole watches her wife sleep, she watches her children sleep, and she cries and she smiles and she knows she would’ve been happy without these children but this particular feeling would have been missing and she will always cherish its memory.

* * *

Waverly awakens with a start. Something is wrong.

She has been in the hospital for two days, is scheduled to be discharged today. The babies are going to come home with them and she couldn’t be more pleased because they are tiny but perfect and can do everything they need to do to live with their mommies right away.

But something is wrong.

Waverly looks around. The light is low, as it’s the middle of the night. Nicole sleeps on the couch that is put into these postpartum rooms with non-gestational partners (dads) in mind. Waverly knows it isn’t comfortable, but Nicole sleeps there regardless, without complaint, the thought of going home without her family just to sleep in a comfortable bed unfathomable to the ever-loyal puppy that Waverly married. Waverly is more grateful for this than she can express.

But something is wrong.

Her eyes go to the bassinets. She can’t reach them. She moves gingerly, her perineum still harboring stitches, her uterus still cramping, her vagina still bleeding. She moves carefully and shifts, inch by inch, until her legs hang over the side of the bed. She takes a deep breath and pushes herself to her feet. Waverly goes to Julia’s side, and the baby is quiet and sleeping, burritoed in a thick receiving blanket Gus had made for her. Waverly moves to Elizabeth’s bassinet.

Something is wrong.

Waverly reaches in, touches the wrapped baby who does not shift, does not move, does not breathe. “No,” Waverly whispers, her heart suddenly constricted by panic. She touches the lump, and the lump practically jumps, gasps, and is suddenly breathing again, tiny little gulps of breath that are so small and yet full lungfuls for the tiny baby.

Waverly’s tears are immediate. She pulls the baby into her arms, and Elizabeth starts crying, and Nicole is on her feet before she’s even properly awake, and Waverly _cries_. She cries because she is here, in the hospital, with her children, and she can’t not see Nicole on that hospital bed, telling her she loves her more than she’d ever loved anyone before. She cries because this is her baby and she needed her mommy and Waverly had been sleeping through it. She cries because it took her _so long_ to get close enough to help. She cries because it’s okay now but for a moment it wasn’t and _what would Waverly do if it happened again?_

She cries so hard she can’t even express to Nicole what’s wrong, and Nicole, bless her, doesn’t demand that information. Nicole, strong and solid and safe, just wraps Waverly in her arms and brings her to the rocking chair. She wipes Waverly’s tears but does not beg them to stop falling. She helps unwrap Elizabeth and brings her to Waverly’s tender breast, which had given its own jolt of pain when she thought the baby now searching for a nipple was dead. Nicole goes and gets the other baby, precious Julia, and brings her to feed alongside her sister. And then she crouches awkwardly and holds Waverly while Waverly holds their children and cries with relief that everything is okay.

Something was wrong but it’s okay.

 

* * *

Nicole carries Julia in her arms and Waverly carries Elizabeth with her in the wheelchair. Wynonna is waiting in the car, ready to drive them to their home, where Wynonna and Gus and Alice will be staying with them while they settle into life with newborn twins.

It will be a bit chaotic, but when is life with an Earp _not_?

Nicole has to stop herself from literally skipping out the door. Her whole family gets to come home together and she can’t be happier.

The boys have visited, but are respectfully keeping their distance today. Today, it’s all the girls, all the experienced hands when it comes to childcare and breastfeeding and baby-soothing. And all the babies who have needed and will need soothing.

The drive seems to take forever. Nicole sits between the two car seats, trying not to fuss and just let the babies sleep, but she’s worried that they’re sitting at the wrong angle for optimum breathing, despite having the installed seats checked more than once. At one point Waverly turns around and Nicole can see the question in her eyes.

“They’re both breathing,” she reassures Waverly, and Waverly smiles and nods and turns around. No one else knows about that horrible scare they’d had last night, and Nicole and Waverly both just endure the teasing Wynonna gives them for checking.

Wynonna doesn’t know. Alice had been with Gus for the first years of her life, so Wynonna never knew what it was like to not be able to sleep because if you sleep then you might wake up to your baby having succumbed to SIDS. She doesn’t know, but Nicole and Waverly would never tell her that because they know just how raw it still is for Wynonna that she was not able to raise her daughter from a newborn.

Having both her babies here, Nicole can’t imagine it, doesn’t want to imagine it, but she has a hard time _not_ imagining it because she had been _there_ when baby Alice was taken away for her own safety. Nicole had arranged the means of that escape and held Waverly as she said goodbye to her niece, as she collapsed into sobs while the helicopter flew over them and away, out of the Ghost River Triangle and on to a safety they simply could not provide.

Nicole can provide it now. The curse is broken and Waverly is safe and healthy and so are their children.

Waverly gets gingerly out of the car, the stitches still in place. They’ll be removed in a week but that does her no good now. She moves to the back door of her SUV, and she meets Nicole’s eyes over Julia’s car seat. They smile, and Nicole’s whole heart, her whole being, is so full that she might burst. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t burst, or overflow, or any of those other metaphors for being over-full. Her heart instead expands to fit the love for this new version of her family.

Carefully as can be, Nicole skirts around the other car seat, gets out of the car, and reaches in to unbuckle Elizabeth from the seat. She protests being awoken, but as it is just about time for her to nurse, Nicole isn’t worried about the baby getting back to sleep. She tucks the baby into the crook of her elbow, pulling the blanket tight despite it being August and still quite hot.

They carry their respective babies inside the house, Wynonna behind them lugging their bags. Inside, they find Gus and Alice have welcomed them home with cake, and Waverly immediately begins leaking tears. Alice helps her mother with the bags and baby supplies. Gus helps get Waverly situated in the extra-wide rocking recliner they purchased for their nursery. While they do, Nicole holds both babies, little burritos in their blankets. They’re not quite upset about not being fed yet, but they’re _active_ and _looking_ a nipple to suckle on.

“Sorry, babies,” she tells them, looking from one face to the other. “These aren’t the boobs you’re looking for.”

“Hey Haught.”

Nicole looks up and sees Wynonna with her phone out, and she just manages to smile before the flash goes. She doesn’t know it, but that will be Waverly’s favorite picture, copies of it framed in various places like her home office, work, and even in their bedroom for years to come. Nicole doesn’t know it yet, but she already looks exhausted, and a little bewildered, but so, _so_ happy. So happy all Wynonna can do is smile back at her.

Nicole, pariah of her family, loner until she met one Waverly Earp, is now _home_ , with _family_ , and there is not one single thing she can think of that would make her happier than she is right now in this moment.

And Wynonna, God bless her, has immortalized this moment for all to look back on and remember.


End file.
